"He was dead. No point speculating. Cherish the past for what it was, an ideal, a signal that human happiness might be a possibility. Raise your standards. Make a decent life, Lucilla. Life is all there is. If it's only once, it must be good... He had been right. If perfection only happened once, that was better than never. Now nothing for her would ever again entail complete despair. So thank you, Gaius Vinius Clodianus, son of Marcus, thank you for your good deed, a deed that brightened somebody's dark world."

““They were not beggars; well, not in the usual sense. They were Christians, who wanted not just my nephews' money but their souls.”

“Not all the fine civic building programmes in the world would ever displace the raw forces that drive most of humankind. This was the true city: greed, corruption and violence.”

“There comes a point for a nut-lover, Quintus thought, where funeral food is worth taking a risk, even when you are dining with a megalomaniac who wants to kill you.”

““You could tell those two had been married by the way that she ignored him.”

“Never stop to breathe the pretty flower scents. The graves of the poor still stink.”

“You're not bloody Aristophanes, and the people who are paying for tickets are not educated Athenians. We're acting for turnips who only come to talk to their cousins and fart. We have to give them a lot of action and low-level jokes, but you can leave all that to us on stage. We know what's required. Your job is to hone the basic framework and remember the simple motto: short speeches, short lines, short words.”